Friday, 2 June 2017

An Act of Silence

An Act of Silence by Colette McBeth

Published by Wildfire

June 2017

These are the facts I collect.My son Gabriel met a woman called Mariela in a bar. She went home with him. They next morning she was found in an allotment.Mariela is dead.Gabriel has been asked to report to Camden Police station in six hours for questioning.Linda Moscow loves her son; it's her biological instinct to keep him safe. But if she's not sure of his innocence, how can she stand by him? Should she go against everything she believes in to protect him?She's done it before, and the guilt nearly killed her.

This is Colette McBeth's third book, out at the end of June, and it's a crime novel with some hidden undercurrents. Linda Moscow is a fomer MP. Her son Gabriel is a famous comic and he is under suspicion by the police for the death of a woman whose body has been found at an allotment that backs onto his London home. He comes to his mother for understanding, and for reassurance from her that he had nothing to do with this incident. Unfortunately this doesn't happen and Gabriel is forced to leave with the suspicions of his mother weighing heavily on his mind.

Linda doesn't know how to react. Gabriel's news has stirred up a whole host of memories that she thought she had buried in the past. However she has no time to concentrate on Gabriel, she is on a trip to Scotland to interview an important witness who might just bring down some people with very powerful connections. However when she crosses the border she is soon to learn that not everything is as it seems and the people you thought you could trust might not be the people you first thought them to be.

I enjoyed this book but I did get a little muddled with so many characters, especially as some have different names throughout the book (but there is good reason for this). Is Gabriel guilty or has he been set up, and if so, by whom? Can Linda save her son, and herself before the powers that be close in around her?